Disclosure: I worked for the Lamont campaign doing web design and production and some writing for the official blog (from 9/5/06 to 11/07/06).

Thursday, August 03, 2006

Lieberman Staffers Disrupt Lamont Event in Meriden

Rumors are flying fast and furious that the Lieberman campaign has decided to cut their entire field campaign for Tuesday, and save their corporate millions to fund a Lieberman Party run after August 9th. It is also questionable whether recently hired field guru Tom Lindenfeld even has a job or not anymore.

Today was an absolute PR disaster for the Lieberman campaign, as they imploded on all levels.

Apparently this happened at a couple of events today, but I've only received reports about one. Matt Stoller already has most of the details, but here's what I've been able to gather independently from Lamont supporters who were at the event.

Ned walks into Ted's Steamed Cheeseburgers for the event, and the 3 or 4 booths inside are already packed, as are some of the counter seats, with about 15-20 teenagers and one older gentleman, many of whom had asked for and received Ned Lamont stickers from the Lamont staffers organizing the event. Ned says hi to the owner. As Ned starts talking, the teenagers reveal Lieberman T-shirts. The older gentleman starts yelling "Are You an Al Sharpton Democrat or a Bill Clinton Democrat?" and something along the lines of "because Bill Clinton has the support of everyone and Al Sharpton only has the support of..." trailing off. Ned decides to leave, with his staff fearing for his physical safety.

The entire scene moves outside, where about 6 reporters are there, witnessing the entire spectacle. A near melee ensues as at least 5 of the Lieberman kids continue to yell and scream at Ned and get physically abusive with Lamont staffers, even bloodying a photographer's nose.

A Lamont supporter at the scene noted the Lieberman staffers looked "red in the face" with anger.

Ned attempts to talk with a 90-year-old WWII veteran pilot from Virginia who wanted to discuss his opposition to the Iraq war. The Lieberman kids scream accusations about Ned's patriotism, spewing right-wing bile accusing him of not caring about our troops, and questioning whether he would (not verbatim) "let our citizens die again," assumedly a reference to 9/11.

One reporter goes up and tries to ask some of these kids whether they are volunteers or paid staffers for the Lieberman campaign. The kid screams in response, "Let me see your credentials!" The reporter produces said credentials. The kid replies "those are fake." None of the 15-20 Lieberman kids there would admit to being paid staffers. Nor would they tell the reporters their names, or any other personal information.

Ned eventually escapes. In the meantime, the teenage Lieberman staffers continue to yell and scream at the Lamont supporters who had shown up just to have a cheeseburger with Ned. Ned returns about 10 minutes later, when things have calmed down.

The reporters were, to a person, understandably horrified at the spectacle.

With the entire field campaign possibly abandoned, and even Lindenfeld's employ in question, the entire substance of Lieberman campaign seems to have degenerated into little more than official, paid-for thuggery at Ned Lamont events.

posted by tparty at 9:21 PM

Comments:

Holy shit. Reading this I have the mental image of Joe Leberman defenestrating Tom Lindenfield.

What a disaster of an event. Truly shameful. I hope the photographer, the vet, Ned, and Liz are OK.

Less than an hour before U.S. Sen. Joe Lieberman's campaign bus pulled up outside City Hall, the city registrar's office had no idea the senator was coming. Hardly anyone else did either.

He did have time for the local Republican:

Before leaving City Hall, Lieberman paid a quick courtesy call on Republican Mayor William Stortz. Staffers said that Stortz, too, didn't know the senator was coming but they didn't want to slip out with at least saying hello to the city's top boss.

what we have here is obviously illegal disruptive brown-shirt-like tactics by the lieberman campaign, likely some sort of warped response by the lieberman campaign to the kiss mobile, which embarrases joe, but which disrupts nothing and which does nothing illegal -

ned needs to rent a CT state trooper to accompany him at all his events from now on, period -

the flashing of just one CT state trooper hat & badge will shut up these lieberman brown shirters pronto -

ned can just tell his audiences & the media that the state trooper is there because several people wearing lieberman shirts have attempted to disrupt his meetups -

several outright illegalities seem to have been already committed here by joe's brown shirters; you cannot legally disrupt a conversation by standing next to the conversers and yell & scream; that is a form of assault, which is a criminal act -

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